


The Art

by Eligh



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Improbable coincidences, Time Travel, this is super Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:43:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5342810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eligh/pseuds/Eligh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Captain Cold travels in time, eats some pizza, and steals a thing. And possibly butterflys the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Искусство](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8674060) by [PrettyPenny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyPenny/pseuds/PrettyPenny)



> I am so excited about Legends of Tomorrow I cannot even.

Len raised his hand and squinted against the sun when he stepped out of Hunter’s ship. He was nauseous, but that wasn’t anything new. Time travel didn’t seem to suit him all that well.

“Move yer ass,” Mick grunted from behind him, and Len sidestepped, glaring, as his idiot pyromaniac friend bounded down the gangplank and shot him a grin. “I want to punch the Backstreet Boys,” Mick informed him. “The nineties will be even better than the seventies.”

“You’re not punching anyone,” Hunter snapped from behind Mick. “You’re not touching anyone, or anything, or stealing anything, or _doing_ anything. You’re staying with the ship.” He tugged his gloves off and stuffed them in his pocket, all while giving Len and Mick a venomous glare that would have made milk curdle. “I will be back in one hour, and then we’ll pick up everyone else and get back to it.”

“You make time travel so exciting,” Mick deadpanned as he leaned back against the ship’s hull, planting one booted foot on her shiny exterior panels. Hunter bristled and pointed a finger in Mick’s face, and Len rolled his eyes because oh, dear, that wasn’t going to go over well. Sure enough, Mick smacked the offending finger away, standing up and straightening his back to his full height, and Len could practically see the blood rush to his fists, so:

“Boys,” he said. Drawled, really, interrupting; the familiar cadence always seemed to help Mick keep a cooler head. He raised one hand slightly in Mick’s direction, calling off his bull, and while Mick still twitched with narrowly contained fury, he subsided with a soft huff of resignation.

It’s for the best, though. They had better people to fight than Rip Hunter.

And seeing the situation diffused, Len added, unable to help himself (because it was so very amusing) “Chill.” He nodded ever-so-slightly in Hunter’s direction. “We’ll stay with the ship.”

Hunter didn’t look particularly mollified, but he sniffed disdainfully and turned away. “ _On_ the ship would be best, Leonard. You don’t want someone to see you.”

“Of course,” Len agreed with a smile and a shrug. “As you say.”

Hunter seemed to consider them for another long moment, but then turned and swanned off with a sweep of his pretentious coat. Len watched until he’d hit the treeline of the grassy park Hunter’d deposited them in, and then turned to his partner in crime.

“What’re you playing at, Lenny?” Mick growled. Len raised an eyebrow.

“We’re in Metropolis, aren’t we?” he asked. “Let’s go get some pizza.”

~

“You know,” Mick said around a far-too-large bite of greasy cheese, “I was sorta figurin’ that ‘pizza’ was code for somethin’ else.”

Len didn’t bother responding to him other than with a distracted hum, and after a minute Mick huffed in disgust and went back to devouring enough pizza to feed at least five men. Len, for his part, took another slow bite of his single slice and kept his eyes on the Metropolis Public Library building across the street.

If it really was the date Hunter’d said it was, there would be just a few walls between him and an exhibition of rare books, the pièce de résistance of which was a the last known original translation of Machiavelli’s The Prince. And it wasn’t that he generally found much to agree with between himself and Italian Renaissance philosophers, but there was something intriguing about it, about the symbolism of the thing. And he’d always had a soft spot for books.

In fact—again, if the date was correct—a much younger version of himself would be currently staking out the far side of the building with this very goal in mind. He’d planned this heist—one of his first—for weeks, only to have the book stolen out from under his very nose just minutes before he’d been able to grab it.

Of course, Len, being Len, remembered every aspect of the plan, down to the very. second.

“Stay here,” he muttered, pushing off the low wall on which they’d settled to enjoy their snack. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

Mick didn’t so much as blink. “Can I have your pizza?”

Len shrugged his parka’s hood up over his head and reached inside the coat to lay a comforting, cool hand on his cold gun. “Knock yourself out,” he said, and jaywalked across the street.

~

Nine minutes and forty-seven seconds later, Len stepped out onto the front steps of the library, tucking an airtight plastic bag containing a slim brown book, mottled with age, into an interior pocket of his parka. At least he finally had an explanation for those odd patches of ice he’d encountered the last time he tried to steal the thing.

He smiled to himself, drawing to a stop next to one of the stone lion guardians that flanked the steps to the library. “Thanks,” he said, resting one leather-gloved hand on the lion’s pedestal. “It’s been fun.”

Mick was still sitting on the wall across the street, his face turned up to catch every shred of heat he could pull from the weak winter sun. He had very clearly eaten all of the pizza, and Len huffed out a laugh as he got moving, jogging down the steps and away from his diversion. They should get back to the ship. He certainly didn’t want to get left in the nineties.

He was about to step out into the street, though, when he was suddenly smashed into from behind, and Len had half a second where he just about forgot himself and pulled the gun but then—then his brain caught up with his reflexes and he realized that the assailant was too small to be a threat. He half-turned, grabbing and yanking backward on a coat instead of drawing and firing from his own, and the kid who’d run into him whoofed out a surprised breath, his legs going out from under him.

In the street, a horn blared long and loud, and Len looked up with wide eyes as a truck barreled past, its driver giving them a one-fingered salute. Ah, the legendary Metropolis charm.

“Cool it, kid,” Len said, turning back to his so-called attacker. “Slow down.” He released the kid’s coat, but then startled hard when huge hazel eyes looked up at him, practically freezing him in place. They were very familiar eyes, if on a face far younger than what he was used to.

“Barry!” a voice shouted, and a harassed-looking woman rushed up to them. “Oh my god, Barry, are you okay?” She ran frantic hands over the kid’s—Barry’s?—chest and arms and legs and then apparently reassured, finally looked up at Len. “Thank you, my god, _thank you_ , that truck almost hit him,” she exclaimed, her eyes brimming with tears.

“I— it was—he’s—” Len stammered, uncharacteristically thrown. He looked down again, and near waist-level, the kid who could only be Barry Allen looked as contrite as a misbehaving six-year-old could possibly be, which wasn’t very.

“If there’s anything I can do,” the woman—Barry’s _mother_?—gushed, and Len regained enough of his wits to rapidly shake his head.

“No,” he said. “No, I— _no_. I need to go.” He shot one more glance at Barry, who took advantage of his mother’s distress to stick his tongue out at Len—my god, what was Len’s _life_. He raised a finger in Barry’s direction. “Slow down,” he ordered. Which was quite possibly the most ineffective warning ever.

“Thank you,” Barry’s mother said again, more warily, but then thankfully started to leave, herding her young son away from the crazy person who’d just accidentally saved the life of the most persistent thorn in his own long and storied criminal history.

Len watched them go until they disappeared into the throng of Metropolis foot traffic, and then finally, dazedly, headed across the street to meet up with a grinning Mick, who’d undoubtedly watched the whole thing.

“Ya big softie,” Mick said by way of greeting, but settled in easily in stride when Len breezed past him, practically growling. “I always knew ya liked kids.”

“They’re annoying,” Len scowled. “Sticky-handed little germ factories.”

Mick just shrugged. “Ya get what ya want?”

“What?” Len asked, his mind still on hazel eyes and improbable coincidences, but then shook his head and touched his parka over the book. “Yeah. Yes, I got what I wanted.”

“Well good the trip wasn’t wasted,” Mick said, shoving his hands in his pockets and picking up the pace back toward Hunter’s ship. Len glanced at him, and then back over his shoulder in the direction the Allen family had disappeared.

No, he didn’t think this trip had been wasted at all.


End file.
